The hype? Don't believe it. To hear it told by many, the Belgian experimentalists aMute have crafted a desolate, nuanced aural landscape in Infernal Heights for a Drama. And while I acknowledge that it is not fair to fault aMute for delivering something which deviated from my expectations, it is fair to fault them for a meandering, directionless array of noise.
Infernal Heights for a Drama is in certain senses more aptly titled than others, for there is nothing dramatic about the infernal racket within. Mechanical chirps and comb filters pervade a pastiche of genre tropes, borrowing the worst of glitch, the most tired of post-rock, and the least captivating of the avant garde.
An out of tune piano introduces the album on "Break", probably the album's high point. A laid back drum pads atmospheric strings while a man's voice sighs with straight-faced melancholy, all in a style reminiscent of Carissas Wierd's earlier works. After that, however, the album somewhat falls apart under its own weight. A more subtle release might attempt to navigate the narrow straits separating "going for broke" and "trying too hard"; Infernal Heights is more apt to run aground.
Group leader Jerome Deuson is apparently the latest in a long line of artists that has confused signal and noise. You simply can't put field recordings, turntablist zipper scratches, and hard drive hums on top of some synthesized strings and percussive loops and expect Boards of Canada. It's akin to the distinction between Abstract Expressionism and crayon doodles on a kitchen wall, or War of the Worlds and Plan 9 From Outer Space; Jackson Pollock possessed discipline, Orson Welles a vision. At this point, aMute is a lot more comparable to Ed Wood or Uwe Boll.
This isn't to say that the album is unlistenable. The ethereal cacphony of "Spread" is very close to successful, and "Enclosed Movements/Inner You" sports crunchy bass under a Dntel-cum-Deepset romp. Together it all certainly makes for excellent conversation-starting background noise at work, in the car, or what have you. It leaves those of us having decidedly more artistic concerns with much to be desired.
-Andy Kissner